Tony Grabowski
Tony Grabowski was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.1) He learned taxidermy from a book as a teenager.2) He graduated in 1974 from the Kelsey Institute of Applied Arts and found a job as a conservation officer working out of Fort St. John, British Columbia. He was the first officer in British Columbia to train and use police tracking dogs in his work with cougars. 3)
In 1987, Tony became the regional supervisor in Dawson. His area included the Porcupine Caribou hunt along the Dempster Highway. In 1991, he was transferred south as the Yukon supervisor and in 2005 he started managing special investigation, regulatory development, and reviewing significant case files. In 2008, Shikar International named Grabowski Conservation officer of the Year for his outstanding contributions to the field of wildlife enforcement. He is known across Alberta, British Columbia and Yukon as a hard-nosed, tenacious investigator with a successful track record. Tony Grabowski retired in 2009 after thirty-five years as a conservation officer.4)
In 1915, Tony Grabowski won the Best All-Round Award at the World Taxidermy Championships in Springfield, Montana. It was his first time at the competition, but he had been a practicing taxidermist for forty-eight years.5)